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It’s not enough to call Digital Lizards of Doom (DLOD for short) a musical act. Made up of Gabriel Valentin and Gallie Fisher (daughter of Allen Fisher, an arm wrestling world champion), DLOD is also the name of an upcoming graphic novel and a theatrical interactive concert experience. Oh yeah, and a beer.

So, no, it’s not a coincidence if that name makes you think of a Saturday morning cartoon. Their recently released album, “Lizards and Labyrinths,” includes lyrical references to comic books, dungeons, the extinction of the dinosaurs and zombies, with a mischievous and dazzlingly kaleidoscopic musical style. It’s the aural equivalent of getting hopelessly, blissfully lost at Comic-Con.

During a chance meeting and conversation with Valentin on a recent visit to Southern California, I was impressed and excited by the multi-tentacled ambitions of DLOD. We had another conversation more recently, about songwriting, pop culture influences and music as storytelling.

Gabriel, the first track on your new record, “Make a Toast,” made me think of an Oompa Loompa rave at Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. How would you personally describe the sound of Digital Lizards of Doom?

I love the imagery you just gave me, let me soak on that for a minute! So, when I came up with the idea for Digital Lizards of Doom I wanted it to be a love letter to everything I loved in music and pop-culture. For example, with “Make a Toast,” we had just made a beer with Bolt Brewery, San Diego’s first prohibition brewery, and we thought, “This is the type of thing DLOD should be writing a songs about.” So, the beer became the inspiration for the lyrics, but also the sound as well. When I think of beer I think of pubs and festive occasions. So we tried to put a taste of that celebratory environment into a song: Eastern European guitars with a plucky bass line, loud group sing-along vocals and, in the last chorus of the song, you can hear us stomping on the ground with our feet to give the kick drum an extra boost.

What are your musical influences, but also your most important sources of inspiration more generally across all media?

We get inspired by the things we love most about this world. Gaming, fantasy stories, sci-fi and horror flicks are all huge parts of both Gallie and I’s life. So in a nutshell we wanted to create a musical universe where can pay homage to these things that we love, and yet also have an excuse to keep participating with them, so we don’t ever have to grow up.

As far as musical influences, we are both huge fans of punk rock and metal, but also huge fans of the theater and Broadway musicals. So we might have a ballad type song, but also feel the need to crunch up the guitars and give it a rawer, less than polished sound.

Listening to these tunes, I regularly get the sense that, at any point, any song could go anywhere. Can you tell us a little bit about your process when it comes to such structurally surprising tunes?

Thank you so much for that! Structure is obviously very important in songwriting and I constantly try to keep myself from getting too over the top with it. I’m sure Gallie has different tools for this, but for myself I love to take the listener on a journey. Imagery is the most important thing in my songwriting. I want the listener to see and hear the story being told. So the writing process is very similar to writing a stage play: What is the story? What is it trying to say? Will there be a beginning, middle and end? And when I write that way I try to allow to story to pick the path of the song sonically. Like, something dark just happened to the character in the song, let’s dive into this hectic bridge for a bit.

OK, it’s a good point to ask you—because Digital Lizards of Doom is so much more than just a musical act—who or what are the Digital Lizards of Doom? What other ingredients are in the DLOD stew, besides the music?

Yes! I love talking about the other stuff! So DLOD is also the name of a graphic novel we have coming out at the end of this year, in December. Similar to the music, Digital Lizards of Doom is a fantasy adventure series, inspired by role-playing, video adventure games and Saturday morning cartoon shows. Digital Lizards of Doom centers around a young lizard named Dizzy Doom, who lives under the tutelage of intergalactic monks. Dizzy’s courage is shaken, and he must now make an unlikely alliance with a mysterious ninja and a swashbuckling pirate. Together they'll search for a fabled weapon that could destroy evil forever and bring the universe into an unending era of peace! So yeah, it gets pretty nerdy pretty fast, but again this is what I have always wanted to do. Rework some of my favorite stories into a whole new adventure I can share with fans all over the world.

We try to include the audience as much as possible into the live show. Dancing, costumes. We encourage people to bring Nerf guns, plastic swords and sometimes our main characters Dizzy Doom and Commander E.K.O. will make special appearances and interact with the audience. We like to literally bring a party with us. Aquabats and Flogging Molly are huge live entertainment influences of ours as well.

There are also so many moments on the record that are perfect for wordless singalongs.

That was one of the most important parts of this record next to storytelling—creating this rock musical ambiance.

For you, what have been the highlights of the colorful history of the Digital Lizards? And what’s next?

There have far too highlights to count, both behind the scenes and onstage. Although I can’t speak for Gallie, but I would have to say that making this record (“Lizards & Labyrinths”) has been the greatest highlight of my musical career so far. I was able to write for the most incredible musicians and work with people I that have looked up to for quite some time. Too many to list here, but it took over thirty people to help make these songs a reality. This record has literally been all over the world.

So the next big task is touring with the graphic novel! It’s a whole world in itself and although it ties directly into the musical experience, we want to give it the energy and attention it needs to be a true contender in the world of pop-culture. After the book’s release we will be doing evening concerts during the weekdays and presenting the book at comic conventions on the weekend. We are all very excited to see what happens!